In this ranking, the doctor explained to journalists, combustion tobacco should be the riskiest nicotine delivery product, with a score of 100 points. He proposed nicotine gums and patches to be the products with the lowest score (between 3 and 5 points), while electronic cigarettes would score between 7 and 8 points and snus and heated tobacco between 20 and 30 points.

According to the doctor, the harm reduction potential of alternative nicotine delivery products is huge.

Doctor Torrell stated that “any nicotine alternative currently on the market is 10,000 times better than combustion tobacco”, which is the reason why he “does not understand those who oppose offering alternatives of all kinds to those who do not want to or cannot quit smoking”.

According to Torrell, making consumers aware of this could make the combustion cigarette a “marginal” product and save between 10,000 and 15,000 lives a year in Spain.

On the different approaches followed by countries to eradicating the tobacco epidemic, doctor Torrell stated: “We need to decouple nicotine from tobacco, as some countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden and New Zealand are doing with quite a lot of success. It has been proven since the 1950s that nicotine is not directly associated with any type of disease. It is nicotine substitutes that can make people stop smoking. If we administer it safely, it has a better chance of success in getting people to stop smoking, which is what we are looking for”.

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